


Fragile

by galimeril



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, PoorZuko, The world keeps beating him up, Western Air Temple, Zuko is Angsty, someone give him a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galimeril/pseuds/galimeril
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was Fire Nation. The enemy. Something made of nightmare that deserved everything he got, right? Then why was Toph acting like he was...a person? AU Post Day of Black Sun at the Western Air Temple. No pairings.</p><p>This work has been translated into German by the inestimably talented Scarestone! It can be read here: https://ssl.fanfiktion.de/s/564e1369000446bb3474fcbb/1/Fragile</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bone vs. Boulder

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my fellow Avatar: TLA fans! So this is my first fic. Ever. Please be kind. This is AU after Day of Black Sun and in my universe Sparky-Boom-Boom-I –Blow-Shit-Up-With-My-Forehead was never in the picture. Zuko never hired him and he's never attacked the gaang nor shall he ever. I've taken some liberties with Zuko's past, but this *is* fan fiction which is clearly labeled AU. Really I don't even know that they can be called liberties as they're technically just nightmares right now… but I digress.
> 
> This fic was originally posted on ff.net
> 
> I apologize ahead of time for my atrocious use of commas, this is unbeta'd.
> 
> Disclaimer: If I owned ATLA, I wouldn't have hired M. Night Shamalyn to direct the movie. *shudder*
> 
> Cheers!

Round One – Bone vs. Boulder

Toph stomped along the ground above the temple sending out feelers to gauge the proximity of obstacles. Such was her anger that rather than go around, she plowed right through them bending boulders left and right. She sent a vicious wave of stone flying before her, wiping out a small stand of saplings as she continued her heated stalking. Aang would have been appalled at her actions. She smirked bitterly. Good.

Why did no one listen to her? She might have been one of the youngest in the group but sometimes she had to wonder if she was the only one that had any damn common sense! Aang *needed* a firebending teacher! If he didn't learn to wait and listen, he was never gonna improve as an earthbender. She had fought to bury the desire to pound her pupil's head into the dust when the idiot had tuned Zuko down. She had been even angrier with Katara's actions. She, as much as Toph, should have seen the blessing it was to have Zuko show up. If he wasn't the spirits' answer to their prayers she would eat her headband.

She knew the spirits didn't deal straight. Ever. They didn't need to - they were already dead. There was no one but the Avatar to hold them to their side of a bargain if they made one and he hadn't been around for a hundred years. In this case, though, Toph had to admit that the spirits had delivered precisely what they had been asking for – a firebending teacher.

 _Guess we should have been a little more specific_  Toph thought wryly. It was the pressing need for Aang to complete his education that had her tramping around up here in the woods above the Western Air Temple at this spirits forsaken hour. She had to find Zuko and talk to him. Perhaps if she got a better feel for him, she would be able to assuage Katara's and the rest of the gang's misgivings and convince the light-footed young man to come back with her.

Toph could tell she was getting close. She could feel the vibrations of someone moving around on the ground and hear the muted crackle of a campfire. Was Zuko awake? He sure was moving a lot for someone asleep.  _Maybe he's dreaming…_

* * *

Zuko was in fact asleep, though just barely. After his return from the disastrous attempt at friendly contact he had sat staring moodily into the flames of his small fire for hours. He had finally given up replaying the unpleasant encounter in his head near midnight and had been dozing fitfully for the last hour. Being outside and alone had put his body in the state of alertness learned on the long journey of exile with Uncle and truly restful sleep was eluding him as nightmares plagued him as they had for many nights past.

Tonight's seemed to have taken him on a path they hadn't trod in quite a while. He hadn't dreamt like this since he had begun traveling as Lee. These had nothing to do with capturing the Avatar, or being banished or his mother. No, tonight his mind took him back to…

" _Dad's gonna kill you! Really, he is."_

_His mind slipped forward to the slight scuff of a heel against the floor and cruel smile in the dark as a pillow clamped to his face. Fighting to breathe, pushing, clawing until he heard his mother's voice and felt the pillow fly away. The same cruel smile reflected on his father's face when he looked at his daughter at the breakfast table the next morning._

_A time when he was fifteen in a small port town, searching for the Avatar. Men in masks descended from the rooftops and emerged from the alleys, a desperate battle that left half the buildings in the town in flames and Uncle carrying him back to the ship muttering about imperial assassins._

_The Agni Kai with Zhao, and the thought that even his own crew wanted him to lose as badly as Zhao's did._

_Sleeping in his cabin on the ship and hearing the boot scuff, so reminiscent of the bare heel on the floor all those years ago. Waking in terror to find the nightmare become flesh as one of his own crewmen held a glittering blade about to plunge it into his chest. The fight was fierce but brief. The man had broken Zuko's arm but Zuko had broken his neck. A fair trade for the new scars the man had bequeathed upon his bare torso with the near miss of the knife's initial swing. He hadn't been able to get a full night's sleep on that ship for the remainder of his time on it._

_He suddenly found himself in a different part of the ship. It was the wheelhouse; he stiffened as he heard a shrill squawk. He turned to see a familiar lizard-bird fly out the window. He followed it shortly as a blast rocked the ship to its core and flung him through the glass pane and into the unforgiving waters below. His frenetic struggles brought his aching body to the surface…_

A branch snapped. Zuko was moving before he registered his surroundings. Sounds like that always meant that someone was there that shouldn't be and that they were going to hurt him. Running on pure instinct and adrenaline he lashed out at the shape moving in the dim glow of the firelight, his mind still lost in the throes of the nightmare.

The slight figure in the darkness was not Toph, but Azula come back to finish what she and his father had started all those years ago.

His fire leapt from his hands and feet. He was jolted out the past and into the present by the indignant shriek behind the earthbent barrier- earthbent? Azula was a prodigy but even she could only bend one element, which meant…

"You burned my FEET!" Oh, Freeze it! The little earthbending girl! What had he done? He hadn't meant to hurt her…

Zuko leapt towards her shouting his apologies, but she turned away from him and began to crawl into the darkness. He begged her to let him help, kept trying to apologize as she bent boulders the size of his head towards him. He dodged, still trying to get through to her.

"I'm sorry! Please -"

But sorry wasn't going to cut it this time, just as it hadn't the last time he had acted out of turn. So intent was he on dodging the flying rocks that he didn't even see the spike she bent that hit his chest with the force of a battering ram. His apologies abruptly cut off as his breathing ceased and he was sent flying backwards with the sickening wet crunch of snapped bone.

He would have cried out as he hit the ground but it was all he could do to try and pull air into his starving lungs. A slight sob escaped as the smaller form disappeared into the brush, unseen. He lay on the hard ground frowning at the stars as his eyes filled with unshed tears as he finally got his breath back. The frustration and disappointment of the last few days finally boiled over.

"Why am I so bad at being good?" he screamed into the night. He gasped as his ill-thought out action spread flames of agony down his side. Toph's element was as tough as she was, and in a contest of bone vs. boulder, the rock would win every time.

Zuko lay still for a moment, gasping for breath. As he got his breathing back under control, he took inventory. His self evaluation turned up some minor injuries healing from The Day of Black Sun. Nothing he considered overly serious. He catalogued and filed away the stiff wrist and fresh burns that were hardly noticeable next to the demanding throb in his side.

Well, there was nothing for it. There was only one way to find out how much damage the wretched rock spike had done. He moved his good arm behind him and tried to lever himself into a sitting position. He recognized the unmistakable stab of agony as he felt bone grate against bone. At least two ribs were broken he decided as his breath hissed out between clenched teeth. With his non-existent luck there were probably some cracked ones as well but it was the broken ones that caused him the most concern.

These were not the first. The pirates' little parting gift had left similar injuries but this time there would be no Uncle here to wrap him in bandages and tell him to rest. He snorted to himself.  _When do I have the sense to listen to Uncle anyway?_ he thought, bitterly. His inability to see good advice for what it was what had gotten him in this situation anyway. Thinking of Uncle brought Zuko back to the altercation he had just had with Toph. Iroh had told him once, "If you slight someone, ask forgiveness a thousand times and then a thousand times more. It is far better to swallow one's pride than to allow things to turn to hate and bitterness over something two words could have fixed had you said them just one more time."

With that thought, Zuko lay himself carefully back down. He was too weak right now to wrap his ribs and he didn't have the material anyway. He hurt too much to even crawl over to get his blanket but the night was warm. He resolved to find Toph in the morning and apologize yet again. Zuko closed his eyes and as he drifted off to sleep, he whispered to the silent wood the words he wished more than anything he could have said before he left.

"I'm sorry Uncle."


	2. Burns vs. Healer

Round 2 - Toph vs. Katara

* * *

Katara straightened from cooking breakfast as she heard the soft rumble behind her. She frowned when she saw one of the temple walls simply fall away.  _Sheesh! Toph was still in a mood, was she?_ The girl sure knew how to hold a grudge that was for sure. Not only had she stayed out all night, now she was tearing apart Aang's people's ancient home? Couldn't she sulk like a normal person?

Her irritation faded away when she noticed that while the wall had fallen, Toph was nowhere in sight. She moved cautiously towards the pile of rocks. "Toph, Are you there? Toph?" She heard a sniffled response and her concern only grew as she saw the huddled figure in the gloom.

"Toph! What happened? Sokka! Get over here, I need your help!" Katara knelt down next to the tearful girl, stroking her hair. "Toph, I need you to tell me what's wrong. Are you hurt?"

"H-he burned my f-f-feet Katara. It h-hurts!" Toph hiccupped as Katara continued her soothing motions. Her hand stilled as she registered what the small earthbender had said.

"…he? Zuko did this! That  _bastard!_  The next time I see him, I am going to-" She cut herself off abruptly. Toph didn't need her anger right now, she needed her help.

As Sokka skidded over Katara turned went into full on mother mode. "Bring her over to the fountain, and be careful of her feet…Zuko burned them." She uttered the last bit through clenched teeth. Sokka's features pinched into an ugly expression of anger but he gently lifted Toph into his arms and carried her over to the fountain beneath the overhang. He set her on the edge of the water and she dipped her abused feet into the cool liquid as Katara directed.

Toph sighed in bliss as her feet sunk though the surface. "That's the stuff!" she sighed in relief. She didn't notice Katara once more kneel at her side, nor the water glow blue as her hand entered her element. She _did_  notice when a strange tingle began to build in her soles and relief was transformed into nothingness. She couldn't feel her feet! "Hey! What are you doing?" Toph demanded.

"Just hold on a sec," came the waterbender's voice from somewhere on her left. "I'm trying to get the chi flowing in your heels; that seems to be where the damage is the worst. I blocked some of the paths to your feet so that I could work on the knots without worrying about it tangling any work I do before I'm done with a section. I'll unblock it in a moment and the numbness will be gone."

Toph blinked. That sounded complicated. "As long as my feet still work when you're done."

"They will but the pain will come back."At Toph's blanched look, Katara hurried to reassure her. "It shouldn't hurt nearly as much, though. I've accelerated your body's natural healing but I can only do so much." Katara smiled to herself. She was actually enjoying working with Toph's chi paths. They were so straightforward. They reminded her of the layout of the streets in Ba Sing se. It was so much easier to follow than Aang's and, like a waterbender's chi, Toph's was varying levels of hard to pliant. But, where she would 'melt' ice in a waterbender's chi to restore flow, she had to 'harden' Toph's chi paths so that they stopped shifting like sand where she had been hurt. She noticed that the area had an unusually high concentration of paths, but that made sense as most of Toph's bending was tied to her feet.

She nearly lost her hold on the threads of chi she was in the process of freezing when Toph jumped at the THUMP! of Appa's sudden landing. She quickly finished the patch she was working on and allowed the previously restricted energy to flow back into the abused appendages.

Toph winced as the feeling rushed back to her lower limbs, but turned to greet Aang readily enough.

"What are you all doing over here? The fountains aren't for swimming, you know!" He chirped at them. Toph, who was tired and more than mildly cranky now that pain wasn't overriding everything else, ground her teeth but put the civil tongue her mother had taught her in her head as she tuned so that she was facing the monk.

"We are definitely not swimming Aang. As you may recall, I do not like to swim as I cannot see in the water. Katara was just helping me with something." Her smile was decidedly brittle. Now that she was calm and had had time to reflect, she was irked at herself. There was no way Zuko should have gotten the drop on her like that, but damn! She hadn't thought anyone could move that fast!

 _Not fast enough_  she thought, grimly. As she replayed the events in her mind, she realized that he had only stopped following her when she had finally hit him. The sound that impact had made niggled a memory in the back of her mind. That was it! She'd heard it in a Rumble once…when the Boulder had gotten carried away and had…  _Ah crap. It sounded like when that muscle bound moron broke apart someone's ribcage._ She winced at the memory. The Boulder's opponent had died shortly afterward as the broken fragments of his ribs had pierced his lungs. The gurgling gasps that had gotten steadily quieter had grated on her nerves and left her with nightmares. Had she done that to Zuko? She wanted him to leave her alone, not to kill him…

Aang cocked his head to the side, heedless of the wide spectrum of emotion displayed in Toph's features. He did catch a clue that something was wrong when frost began to rime the ground around Katara's knees and ice crystals cracked from his eyelashes.

Katara's eyes promised murder and Aang actually took a step back before he realized that the look wasn't directed at him. He glanced worriedly in the direction that Katara seemed focused on, but there was nothing but empty air.

"Katara? Are you alright?"

"I will be. Once we go and take care of Zuko."

Whoa, that was a Bison of a different color... He had been under the impression that Katara wanted nothing more to do with the cranky firebender. "Why the change of heart?" Aang questioned cautiously. The level of intensity in her words and stare were enough to crack even Aang's blissful bubble of obliviousness.

Katara rose to her full height and regarded her student with eyes devoid of the warmth he had come to associate with them. "He attacked Toph last night and burned her feet."

Aang's eyes widened and he looked incredulously between the two girls. "What! I thought Toph said he was sincere when he said he had changed. Is she going to be ok?"

"I'm blind, not deaf Twinkletoes. Don't talk about me like I'm not sitting right here!" Toph's forced smile had eroded into a decidedly unfriendly expression.

Aang reddened as Katara frowned disapprovingly in Toph's direction and answered Aang's frenetic querry. "She's going to be fine. It's going to take a few more healing sessions to get everything back to normal, though."

The Avatar smiled in relief, but the expression was short-lived. His face fell as he directed his next question to Toph. "But…why did he attack? I don't understand. Was he lying before?"

"No." Toph's expression had lost its hard edge and now looked thoughtful. "Looking back on it, I'm not even sure if it was really an attack-"

"How could it not have been?" Katara interrupted loudly. "He  _burned_  you! Without provocation! It wouldn't be the first time he's lied to us." There was a note of bitterness there that Toph made a note to investigate later.

"Would you let me finish Sweetness? Yes, he burned me but I think I might have scared him. I thought he was asleep when I first found him but he was moving around a lot so I thought maybe he hadn't gone to sleep yet… what if it was a nightmare? You know how violent Sokka gets when we wake him up…" Toph's voice trailed away in contemplative silence.

"No comparison." Katara's imperious voice cut through the haze of contemplation. "Throwing a couple punches and trying to kill someone are in completely different leagues. There's no way he bent in his sleep! It takes concentration and will to bend. It's obvious he meant to hurt you. We should find him and deal with him once and for all!"

Aang was looking decidedly nervous now. He looked timidly at Sokka who had joined them after saving breakfast from burning (priorities!) and had been sitting quietly through the exchange. "What do you think we should do?"

Sokka didn't even hesitate. "I agree with Katara, the man is dangerous and we need to do something about him."  
"And what exactly are you planning on doing?" the airbender asked, his eyes flicking between the siblings.

"Kill him."

Aang was shocked to see the hatred that had hardened Katara's features. The weak morning sun seemed to be swallowed by her flat stare.

"No. There won't be any killing. All life is precious and that includes Zuko's."

The look Sokka shot him was unreadable. "What do  _you_  propose we do with him then?"

"Um…well…we can't leave him out there while we're staying here so I guess…uh…we'll capture him and keep him as a prisoner until we leave."

Katara and Sokka regarded him for a moment as Aang waited, tensely, for some kind of response. A sharp nod form the elder tribesman broke the standoff. Katara still looked angry but Toph seemed almost…relieved.  _Weird._

"I agree, we do need to go find him-" Toph increased her volume as Katara drew in breath to say something, "We need to find him but I don't think we need to capture him." Her statement was met by three incredulous expressions that had absolutely no effect on her. She smirked at the stunned silence and continued in her previous vein. "Yes, he burned my feet but he did apologize afterwards and tried to help me…"

"Well he said 'I'm sorry' so that makes everything better!" Katara's tone was ugly as her face twisted to match it.

"Why don't we just go find him and then we can decide what to do then?" Toph asked. She was willing to deal if it meant she could make sure she hadn't accidently killed the exiled bender.

"What do you mean 'we?" Sokka's voice cut through the tension between the two females.

"You're going to take me with you. There's way too much brush up there for Aang to see him on a flyover and he still hasn't been patient enough to learn how to see with his feet." Her student flinched at the not so subtle critique. "There's no way you're going to find him without  _me,_ " she finished smugly.

* * *

Sokka grumbled for the umpteenth time as he had to bend down for Toph to touch the earth. She was glad that was all she had to distract her; they had convinced Aang that he needed to stay at the temple. She concentrated for a second, her hand buried in the loamy soil and then pointed towards a particularly mauled looking stand of saplings. "That way," she chirped. Sokka glanced towards the splintered trees and wondered if there were any large predators in this forest. "We're getting close."

Toph felt all the muscles in Sokka's upper body tense. "How close?"

"Close enough that you should probably put me down." The water tribesman nodded and gently set her on the ground. Toph dug her hands in, creating a rolling wave of earth that brought her to the outskirts of Zuko's small clearing.

The siblings were silent, watching her. She turned towards them and pointed. "He's just beyond those trees."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Katara might seem a bit OOC, especially if you're a fan of hers. I'm not a hater, I just feel like she has a darker side that the rest of the gaang might dismiss rather than confront. Zuko and Toph are going to be a hard dose of reality that just might bring her black and white set into the age of Technicolor.
> 
> If you want a really fascinating and in depth character analysis, I highly recommend Vathara's "Embers." It can be found under my favorites on my profile. It is well researched and realistic - a true masterpiece!


	3. Sweetness vs. The Blind Bandit

Previously:

_The siblings were silent, watching her. She turned towards them and pointed. "He's just beyond those trees."_

* * *

Round Three – Sweetness vs. The Blind Bandit

Stiff and sore, the rustling of the Avatar's companions in the underbrush as they closed in registered subconsciously and Zuko's dreams took a similar turn for the worse. His near-silent mumbles of protest were lost on the three coming upon his camp.

Toph stopped the rolling wave of earth she had summoned to bring her to the edge of the clearing and peered at the sole occupant's form. She frowned in concentration. Something was… off. Zuko was near the middle of the clearing but he was almost... _blurry?_  She checked the rest of her surroundings and found to her relief that neither of her escorts appeared the same way. So it wasn't her bending that was off, it was Zuko.

She reared back a bit in surprise when she realized what was wrong. The firebender was shaking. Violently too, if the muted twitch of his limbs was anything to go by…

"I think he's asleep," Toph informed the other two. "And judging by the vibrations, he's dreaming - and not about turtle-ducklings and kitten-owlets. He felt like this last night. Maybe you should wake him up before you get much closer," she added.

Katara rolled her eyes and mentally smacked herself as she realized the gesture was lost on Toph. She ground her teeth together as she regarded the barely visible ex-prince. Her stance subtly shifted as a truly nasty idea took hold of her. She gestured to the skin on her back and brought forth a thick stream of water. She bent it into a thin ice shell full of freezing water. Sokka snickered quietly and she joined in with a malicious smirk as she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet and made a large sweep with her arms to make her wake-up call hover over the firebender's head.

She dropped to one knee, her palms parallel to the ground. The hard shell dropped like a stone and cracked over Zuko's head, dousing him in bitterly cold water.

Zuko woke abruptly as his breathing turned against him. He began to cough up icy liquid as he leapt unsteadily to his feet, eyeing his blurry surroundings.

Toph frowned as she noted the abrupt shift in position – just like last night. She felt the sudden spike in his heart rate…  _Didn't Katara wake him up like I said?_

Zuko had noted none of this. All he knew was that he had been sleeping, alone, and then there had been water – water too cold to be rain or anything else even remotely benign. Something was here that shouldn't be. In the space of the time it had taken him to rocket to his feet and dismiss the fact that he felt unusually dizzy, he had swept his arm in the general direction he thought the water had come from. A weak tongue of flame flickered to life, mirroring the path of his arm.

 _Still pretty functional_ , Toph noted.  _But, he's not as graceful as he was last night_ … He was still trembling too. She turned but before she could say anything to her Katara, enraged by what  _she_  considers the second unprovoked attack in as many days, brought her water whip cracking down on the still-hazy Zuko.

She managed, by skill or just Zuko's non-existent luck, to hit his injured side. No matter how much training or how many years of combat experience you have, a broken rib is a broken rib.*

He crumpled to the ground with a cry, gasping as white hot agony began to burn him from the inside out. Light exploded behind his eyes and the world focused into just him and the pain. Katara remained in a ready stance, waiting for Zuko to get up so she had the excuse she needed to finish him off once and for all. But Zuko stayed down; in fact he wasn't moving at all…

"I said to wake him up not attack him, Sugar Queen!" Toph was furious. But her ire was matched by the source of her ire.

"I did wake him up! He attacked  _us_!" Katara's voice rose several octaves beyond the norm as she screeched her protest but Toph was unimpressed.

"You're not pulling that one on me  _Sweetness!_  You say he attacked? I didn't even feel it get warm over here and I'm right next to you! He couldn't have hurt a flutter-hornet right now, what did you do to him?" She was starting to worry.

"Nothing I haven't done before." Katara's cold reply broke Toph's reverie. She turned to ber brother and growled, "Well? You wanted to take him prisoner, go capture him!" Toph glowered at her words but bit her tongue. The deal had been that she could come and find him again in order to facilitate his capture. Thankfully, no one had specified how long Zuko need be imprisoned. She could certainly work that to her advantage if things went south…

* * *

Sokka approached cautiously, suspecting a trick, as Katara covered for him. He flinched at the loud crack of a twig underfoot. How he longed for the soft, clean snow of the poles that made every step a silent one. If it hadn't been for the bastard on the ground before him he would still be there. With Gran-Gran, protecting the village. The closer he got to the prone form, the angrier he got.

Zuko lay on the ground, one hand wrapped around his side, the other scrabbling weakly at the dirt in an attempt to find the dual swords that should have been next to him as he slept. They should be  _right here!_  He wasn't quite sure of what had happened, as the black spots invading his vision and the roaring in his ears made it quite difficult to think.

As Sokka closed the distance between the two, he became more and more tense and more and more sure that Zuko was planning some elaborate trap. Thus, he failed to notice the harsh pattern of Zuko's breathing and how he was curling instinctively inward to protect his injured side. Instead, months of anger over being chased and attacked by the prince boiled over and he closed the last step with a sweeping kick to the banished prince's middle. "You're mine now, jerkbender!"

Zuko's body couldn't take any more abuse. The flames of pain that had occupied what was left of Zuko consumed him. His scream was choked and brief as consciousness blissfully flew from him.

Sokka was stunned. He'd seen Zuko take far worse than that and  _laugh_! But he was just lying there, breathing funny.

"Stop it!" cried Toph. "You idiot, Sokka! He was hurt! I'm blind and I could see that only bending with my hands!"

Sokka glanced over at Toph and nudged Zuko with his toe. He didn't so much as groan. "How was I supposed to know that? He was fine yesterday! I thought he was being all fire-nationy and sneaky, trying to get me in close so he could attack! After all, he attacked you!" Sokka pointed out stubbornly.

"For the last time, It. Was. An.  _Accident!_  He didn't mean to burn me, and he tried to help me!"

"I don't believe it! How the heck does someone 'accidentally' burn you?"

"Aang burned Katara."

Sokka's mouth snapped shut and was silent for a moment before he began to sputter indignantly. "Aang wasn't even close to being trained, it was his  _first day!_ Zuko has no excuse!"

"I surprised him, Sokka! Same way I sneak up on you without trying to. Only, he heard me and I must've spooked him! He apologized for burning my feet and he tried to help, but I wasn't thinking right. He must really have wanted to make amends too, because not everyone will keep trying to get close to me when I'm bending crap at them from every direction to get away."

"Huh," Sokka grunted unconvinced as he eyed the body before him. "Katara? Wanna see what's up with the angry jerk?"

The look on Katara's face said she didn't even want to think about touching Zuko, much less check his vitals. Toph must've sensed her mood because she turned her sightless eyes in Katara's direction and pleaded with her. "Please Katara? I think I may have been the one to hurt him when I was bending. I'd feel really bad if I never got the chance to apologize to him at least?" Katara, seeing the normally tough-as-nails Toph's eyes welling with tears, reconsidered her angry suggestion to just leave him here to rot instead of taking him prisoner that she had been about to make and bent the water out of the skin she had returned it to at Sokka's all clear.

"Fine," she snarled. "But if he makes one wrong move, I'm pushing him off the cliff face." Sokka's eyes widened, but Toph nodded solemnly. The tears were, of course, an act. Toph knew how to push Katara's buttons better than most; she just usually used that power to make Sugar Queen angry because that was fun. In this case though, she genuinely felt terrible about hurting someone unintentionally. She'd never done that before...Toph prided himself on her self control, it wouldn't sit right with her if something happened to Zuko because she'd bent in anger.

Not that she had a problem hurting someone who attacked her. But in retrospect, Zuko hadn't continued the attack after the initial outburst and he'd tried to help. She winced as she remembered his last words being cut off with a crunch. Toph brought herself back to the present as she felt Katara's knees hit the ground.

Katara loomed threateningly over Zuko and her hands took on the eerie blue glow as she sheathed them in water and moved them over Zuko's still form, looking for disruptions in his chi. Her hands stuttered to a halt when she got to his chest. There was a huge knot of sickly grey chi against the rest of the healthy molten gold. This was bad, and she needed a closer look to determine the extent of the injury.

"Sokka, I need you to turn him over," she growled.  _Whatever Toph's done to him, I hope it hurts_  she thought, spitefully. Her brother knelt next to her and roughly grabbed Zuko's shoulder and hip and pushed to roll him over. The resulting cry of pain the action elicited from the unconscious form was enough to reassure Katara that it had.

Now on his back, Zuko was breathing fast and shallow and the sounds he made when doing so reminded Katara of boulders rolling down the mountainside. "Good job Toph," she said cheerfully. "He's got at least two ribs broken, and I'd say one cracked."

Toph started, she didn't think she had hit him  _that_ hard! "Why do you sound so happy about that, Sweetness?" Toph retorted angrily.

"Because Toph," Katara snarled, "he's the Firelord's son. He hates the Avatar and he's a no-good sneaky...JERK who hunted us, literally, from one end of the earth to the other, who has never balked at stooping to the lowest possible tactics in his pursuit of Aang and he got what he deserved!"

Toph was shocked. She'd seen Katara angry before…well, maybe not  _seen_  per se, but she'd never experienced this level of scary. It wasn't Katara anymore – it was one of the angry vengeance spirits that lived in the spirit tales Toph's nurse used to tell her.

"Katara, you're scaring me," Toph whispered.

Something in her tone must've made it through to Katara's mothering senses, because she immediately deflated and walked over to Toph. "I'm sorry Toph. I didn't mean to upset you. Zuko's just a really bad person, and I…"

"He's not that person anymore! Weren't you listening to me this morning? He was *sincere* when he said he'd changed! He genuinely wanted to help Aang learn firebending and he didn't mean to hurt me! I can't believe you of all people are happy that someone is hurt. Aren't you supposed to be a healer?"

She felt Katara step away from her, her heart beating as rapidly as Zuko's. "I feel really bad about what I did to him Katara, I've never hurt anyone I wasn't trying to before, and in this case, I don't think he even deserved it. Don't turn your back on the good person I know you are just because you're upset. Do you think Aang or any of us would want that?" She could tell she'd hit a nerve when she made Katara think about how Aang would view this situation.

"Fine," Katara hissed. "What do you want me to do?"

Toph sagged in relief. "Well, for starters we can get him back to the temple and you can heal him!"

"No."

"What? But you sai-"

"I know what I said. We'll take him back, but I can only start his body towards healing. It takes a lot of energy to heal and I'm not wasting all of mine on him. What if someone in our group gets hurt or we're attacked? If he found us, who's to say others won't follow? I want to still be able to help our allies and Zuko is still an enemy, no matter how he says he's changed. Besides, I still need to do healing sessions on your feet if you want to be walking any time soon." If she were being totally honest with herself, Katara also wasn't quite sure what she was doing with an injury of this magnitude. Her one day with Yugoda hadn't prepared her for this.

Toph was silent as she considered the stubborn set of Katara's stance in the ground. She'd have made a good earthbender with all that attitude. She was smart enough to know better than to push Katara any further right now so she nodded her assent. She would talk to Katara later, after she cooled down.

Her train of thought was interrupted once more that day as Katara scooped her up in her arms to carry Toph back to the temple and Sokka was left to bring Zuko. Katara called over her shoulder, "Be careful not to move his chest around or push on it too much!"

Sokka stared at the body before him. How was he supposed to do that? Normally when carrying someone Zuko's size, he would throw him over his shoulder, but that would put the pressure of Zuko's dead weight on his ribs, and Katara would probably be angry at him for not listening to her. Well, maybe not, but Toph sure would be. For some reason she seemed convinced that Zuko was a real person and cared about what happened to him. Making Toph angry was low on Sokka's 'Things To Do If I Want to Survive This War' list.

He finally settled on carrying Zuko wedding style, cradled in front of him like a small child. As he lifted Zuko up and settled him against his chest, he was surprised at how light he was. He wasn't scrawny, Sokka could feel the hard definition of muscle under the cloth covering Zuko's slight frame, but there was little besides muscle there. The guy was lean, like an Arctic Fox-Wolf at the end of winter. It gave his face a gaunt, haunted look accented by the mass of scarred flesh covering the upper left quarter of his face.

"Bet the girls are all over you," Sokka huffed sarcastically as he made his slow way back to the temple. Zuko frowned in response, lost in his own nightmares and mumbled something incoherent. "Didn't catch that buddy," Sokkka rambled as he continued to close the distance between the girls and himself.

"Azula always…" Zuko muttered.

"Azula? What does that crazy bitch have to do with anything? No offence man, but your sister out-scarries mine any day." Zuko didn't seem to hear him as he continued on in his oblivious state. Finally Sokka caught up to Toph and Katara.

As they neared the temple Zuko seemed to be waking up – he was tossing his head back and forth, making it difficult for Sokka to maintain his grip. Sokka yelped out loud when Zuko's eyes snapped open and with a strangled gasp he tried to twist out of Sokka's arms. His body went stiff as his muscles spasmed in protest and he lay still again. His golden eyes were glassy and they wandered, not focusing on anything in particular. "Azula always lies," he whispered before his lids fluttered shut again.

"Oookaaay…that was really weird," Sokka complained.

"You said it Sokka," his sister replied. "Let's get him inside." She called for Aang to bring Appa up to them so they wouldn't have to use the ropes to lower Zuko and Toph. Aang was surprised to see Sokka carrying Zuko.

"What happened?" He asked.

"We think Toph happened," Sokka answered.

"Hey, it was an accident!" Toph exclaimed. "I couldn't see straight and I didn't have much control over my bending! I'll apologize to him when he wakes up."

"Ok, explain later. Everyone on Appa, he'd like to go back to his nap soon." Aang said as he helped Sokka lift Zuko into the saddle. The all clambered into the saddle and descended into the cavernous temple below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Props for this line go to Michael Weston who uttered it in the Pilot episode of Burn Notice. I don't own that either!


	4. Hatred vs. The Healer

Round Four – The Healer vs. Hatred

"Ahhhh! Thank you Katara, I'm glad I'm worth wasting your energy on." Katara glared at her as she bent the water she had been holding to Toph's feet back into the fountain.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you want it too, Sweetness," Toph replied blithely as she scooted back towards the wall of the temple, careful not to let her feet touch the ground.

"Humph!" Katara rolled her eyes and called Sokka over to help her with Zuko. He was lying in a heap in the shadowy corner of the temple where Sokka had left him. Aang had been filled in as they had landed. He hadn't approved of Katara ignoring the more severe injury, but even he was not immune to the prejudice against Zuko that the year of pursuit had left and he hadn't pressured her to look after Zuko first.

Zuko's were not the first set of broken ribs she had seen, but the one other time this had happened, Gran-Gran had chased her out of the tent so she could get poor Kanahi out of his bloody clothes. That particular incident had led to the banning of Polar-Grizzly riding. If she was completely honest with herself, Katara wasn't quite sure what she was going to do with Zuko's ribs. She settled for a standard probe of the chi, and perhaps she'd get something flowing again inside that nasty looking tangle that spanned most of his left side.

Sokka arrived and rolled Zuko on his back again. "I need you to get his shirt off," Katara said briskly. Sokka gave her an incredulous look. "It's easier to feel the chi if I have direct contact with the skin!" she exclaimed hotly. Sokka's gaze cleared and he had the grace to look a bit sheepish. He proceeded to pull Zuko's arms out of his sleeves and push the shirt down around his waist. Sokka bit his lip as the carnage was revealed.

Zuko's chest was a veritable maze of scars - some old and pale while others looked more recent. His back was much the same Sokka discovered as he rolled Zuko so that all of the damage was accessible to Katara. Zuko rested on his hip and right shoulder and Sokka kept a hand of his left to keep him balanced during Katara's examination.

She summoned a small amount of water to coat her fingers once more and slowly moved the glowing digits up and down Zuko's lanky frame. Starting near his temples where a healthy sheen of gold shone to her altered perception, she moved down through his torso, noting duller red patches there and in his arms and a dim orange near his right wrist. She skirted the area around his ribs where the pale grey showed almost no movement of chi, like a fire that had been left to burn down to ash, and completed the scan around his legs. She encountered more red patches there, but resolved to ignore them for now. She had never had the chance to really examine the patterns of a firebender's chi and it was very different from the straight paths and verdant coloring she had seen while healing Toph.

The patterns seemed to match their elements. Aang's had left her dizzy when she had tried to follow the paths and heal blockages. She had been grateful for her Spirit Oasis Water, it had done most of the work for her. Zuko's chi had a flaring pattern that seemed to be a combination of Toph's lines and Aang's…whatever those shapes had been. She wasn't even sure there had been shapes, come to think of it. There was a big net of chi around the center of his chest, near where his lungs ought to be. She sensed the high concentration there must denote the area as important to a firebender's bending. She furrowed her brow as she deepened her probe into the area around that dense tangle of chi – the dead-looking expanse that she knew was the ribs Toph had smashed.

She bent more water and covered the mottled skin with the cool liquid. She concentrated on the blanket of moisture and it too began to glow with the same spirit-touched light that had been only around her fingers before. With her workspace now widened she hesitantly began to pick at the threads of chi, trying to unravel some of the smaller knots and encourage healing where she could get the strands to cooperate. After the tenth knot she sat back on her heels dropping her water to splash onto herself. Spirits, she was tired and the large grey area hardly looked any brighter. She snorted; maybe she wouldn't have to worry about rolling him off the cliff after all. If her sessions had this little effect on him, he wouldn't last long anyway.

"Alright, I'm done. Aang, can you hand me that roll of bandages over by Appa's saddle?" Aang quickly grabbed the soft white roll, tossing it to Katara. She began to unwind it and, with Sokka's help, wrapped Zuko's bruised torso tightly in the supporting linen.* They laid Zuko on his back and Sokka tossed a blanket on him as an afterthought. The group proceeded to gather around the small fire Teo had managed to get started for dinner. None of them noticed the slight glint of the firelight off Zuko's eyes as the narrowed slits examined the people at whose mercy he was now at. After a few moments, he drifted into a true sleep, hoping they wouldn't try to kill him in his sleep if they had gone to the trouble of bandaging his ribs. It wasn't long before the nightmares descended upon him once more.

* * *

Toph rolled over. She had fallen asleep near the fire after Katara had finished with her feet. The cool water and the relief had lulled her into a light sleep. She frowned as she felt the slight vibrations coming from near the wall of the fountain room. She counted and found one extra person laying a ways away from the more familiar figures gathered closer to the fire. Her frown deepened as memory returned. Zuko, it was Zuko moving around over there, and it felt like he was having another nightmare. Did the guy have any happy dreams? She rolled her eyes as she made her way over to the latest addition to their group.

"Zuko!" she whispered loudly. "Hey, Zuko! Wake up!" There was no response from the distressed teen, he just continued to twitch and toss his head restlessly, his breathing hitched and uneven. Toph knelt next to him reaching out and laying one hand on his shoulder and her other on his forehead. She let fly a string of colorful curses that would have had her parents flat on their backs if they ever heard her say one of them, let alone her favorite set.

Zuko was burning up. She was sure even firebenders weren't supposed to be this hot. She crawled over to the familiar breathing pattern that marked Katara on the far side of the fire and shook the other girl awake. "Katara! Something's wrong with Zuko, I think he has a fever!"

Katara groaned as she rolled over. "There's nothing I can do about that, if he has a fever his body's trying to fix something on its own," she growled, thinking Toph had woken her just because Zuko felt a little warm.

"Can't you cool him down or something? Make some ice?" Toph wheedled. "What if it were Aang burning up?" She knew fevers could be dangerous and provoking Katara when she was this tired was as well, but right now Zuko's fever scared her more. She still felt the heat in her palm from where she had touched him.

Katara glared at her. "Burning up, huh? Toph, he's a  _firebender!_  Maybe they're supposed to be hot?" Toph could see this was getting her nowhere, so she decided to stop playing nice. She began to walk away and slid the earth Katara was sleeping on along behind her. Katara let out a strangled noise of protest before she found herself unceremoniously dumped beside Zuko. "Katara, if you're going to be a healer, you had better start acting like one," Toph stated whilst staring straight ahead. "You accepted Zuko as your patient. I'm not asking you to do more healing – we had a deal about that and you upheld your end. What I  _am_  asking you to do is show some damned humanity! Sprits, I know you don't like the guy and I honestly don't have a very good grasp as to why other than the fact that he chased you but you need to get your head on straight. If you refuse to help him now how does that make you any better than the people we're fighting against?"

Katara was silent for a moment and Toph hoped what she had said was getting through the indignant anger that she could practically smell it was so strong. A soft whimper from Zuko cut through the stillness and Katara seemed to deflate a little. She turned sharply on her heel and Toph breathed a sigh of relief as she felt Katara going through the motions of bending.

Water from the central fountain arced over their heads and settled into ice formations around the prone Zuko. "Thank you, Katara. You did the right thing." Katara's odd look at Toph was lost on the blind girl as she settled next to the feverish young man.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" Katara asked curiously as she noted Toph's new position.

"I would have thought it obvious, oh great healer. I'm going to keep an eye on him for tonight, so to speak. He's still got the fever and his breathing sounds funny. I may not be a healer like you, but even I know that's bad."

Katara stiffened. Who did Toph think she was? She didn't need the earthbender to tell her what to do as a healer. She knew! Didn't she?  _Great_  she thought.  _Now I'm doubting myself._  She groaned and dropped to her knees beside Toph. "For spirit's sake, Toph. What do you want from me?"

It was eerie how Toph's sightless eyes stared unerringly into her own. "I want you to think, Katara. I want you to look past your prejudice. Oma and Shu! What gives you the right to decide whether or not he deserves to be helped? If you were captured, wouldn't you want to be treated humanely? Because I gotta say, the way you've been all treating him I would almost say you're trying to torture him!"

Katara's hand unconsciously dropped to where her water skin would normally be. Toph's anger was palpable, cold and penetrating. She felt a slight thrill of fear before she ruthlessly repressed it. She glared at the smaller female. How dare she act so superior to her! She had not been torturing Zuko! For the love of the ice! She had done everything Toph had asked of her!

Healer Yugoda's words floated back up through her memory.  _A healer's duty is a sacred one. We can do more harm than the most vicious attack which is why you must never accept someone as your patient unless you are willing to care for them to the utmost of your ability until they are well again. You cannot simply stop caring for them because you don't want to continue or they're difficult or you don't like them. Abandoning care of a patient can often do more harm than leaving them alone to begin with…_

Abruptly, the fight drained out of Katara. She felt ashamed of her treatment of her patient. She may not like the exiled prince but she had accepted responsibility for his health.

"Please Katara, can't you just fix his breathing? He sounds awful! That should be easy to fix, right?"

Silently, Katara forced some of the ice now surrounding Zuko into a frozen glove around her hand. The hardened water crackled and a frost rimed the ground beneath her knees as Katara sank into a true healing trance. Small puffs of steam escaped the lips of the three benders caught within the young healer's cold snap.

Katara was oblivious to the effect she was having on the immediate microclimate. She felt herself falling through layers of her consciousness until she was submerged in glowing threads of chi. She moved to the shadowy border of the web of chi surrounding his lungs. She took a deep breath and slid the brightly glowing projection of her hand into the horribly unnatural darkness suffusing Zuko's chest. The icy fingers of her own chi stroked the dull threads, gently pulling and teasing at the tangled strands. Small embers of red began to spark in her wake as flow began to be restored to the starved areas, peeking through like a embers in a banked fire.

This was so differed from the rush and push she felt in Aang's chi. It was warm here, like a summer day. She knew instinctively that the chilled deadness pulling the warmth away from the newly kindled threads needed to be stopped. She pulled the coldness to herself, wrapping it around her icy fingers and leaving the warmth that the ash had been trying to smother.

She moved with more confidence as she continued, but she was worried. She had bound the ribs, there shouldn't be anything left to be causing this much damage. It was even worse than when she had done her surface scan. There had to be something she had missed.

She pushed further and further. She discovered a brightly glowing spot that lit the surrounding area. She twitched a bit as it beat loudly. She had found his heart.  _Didn't think he had one_  she thought, bitterly. She continued her forward push, untangling and encouraging as she went, blowing on the sparks until they caught, just like she would the cooking fire. She stopped short as she encountered something hard and sharp; something that had no business in the soft tissue of the lungs.

She concentrated wrapping the ice she could control around the black bit of malice that was trying to ruin all of the healing. She finished encasing the foreign object in her protective layer of ice and began to pull. It slid reluctantly out of place and she proceeded to pull it along a path she opened ahead of herself. She came to a screeching halt as she realized that even if she managed to move it out of the lungs, she still needed to get it out of his body. And the only way out of Zuko was  _through_  Zuko.

She could feel the beginnings of a headache forming as she contemplated the best place to bring the damaging shard out. The second lesson Yugoda had taught that day had been that sometimes to heal, one must cause pain. The art of healing lay in balancing the pain caused with the good that could be done. She knew whatever this was, it needed to come out. She decided that the best place to bring it through would be where there was already pain. Surely a bit more wouldn't be as big an inconvenience as damaging somewhere else on his chest.

She made the ice encapsulation as hard and smooth as she could. She didn't want to tear anything unnecessarily as it moved. She began to draw it to the side closest to her. She had never tried anything requiring this degree of control over her bending before and it was exhausting. She could feel the small shard near the surface and with one last pull she forced the sharpened end of the ice covering through the skin.

* * *

Toph started in alarm as Zuko began to toss and moan and Katara began to tremble. She noted with alarm that both of their heart rates were accelerating rapidly. She moved closer and touched Katara's frozen arm. "What are you doing Katara? You're hurting him! Hey! Katara!" She continued to shout at the catatonic healer but neither she nor anyone in the camp responded. She fell silent as she noticed something clink to the ground and Katara sagged bonelessly forward over the prone form of Zuko. He had stopped moaning, but was now trembling violently once more. Toph quickly pulled Katara off of Zuko and laid the sleeping girl next to her patient.

She felt Zuko's head and found, to her relief, that while it was warmer than it should be, it no longer felt like she had touched a pot on the fire. She bent a warm earthen blanket over the cooling teen and then, remembering that something had hit the ground before Katara's collapse she bent down and felt along the ground next to the two sleepers.

Her fingers closed on a cold piece of something hard. It wasn't ice, she could feel minerals in it. She stroked her callused fingers over it, wondering why it felt so familiar. The sharp shard fell from nerveless fingers as memory of her youth came to the forefront. It was how her family had discovered she was a bender…they maids had chased her out of the kitchen because she kept wanting to play with the chicken-hog bones in the refuse heap because they were the only toys she could find that she could 'see.'

It was a bone shard that had fallen. Toph felt a bit ill. She stopped once more to pick up the fragment. It was about as long as her little finger, thin and rough. She slipped it in her money pouch and firmly decided that she needed to go to sleep. Zuko's breathing had finally evened and sounded much clearer. She lay down between Katara's cool frame and the earth covering Zuko. She would think about this in the morning and hopefully Zuko would be awake enough for her to apologize to at last.

She smiled as she drifted off. She honestly hadn't expected Katara to do the healing session she had just done. She decided that appealing to Katara's healer side might be the best way to get her to continue treating Zuko and maybe get her to see that he was the teacher Aang needed. She had to believe it was possible, after all – one miracle had happened tonight, hadn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So there it is. Katara's finally gotten it through her head that she has to be a healer all of the time, not just when she feels like it or it's convenient.
> 
> *A common treatment for broken ribs was to wrap them tightly in an effort to support them. Recent studies have shown that this actually does more harm than good.
> 
> As there was some confusion as to where the bone shard ended up, I wish to clarify. The shard punctured his lung and was near his heart, but not in it. Hence the difficulty breathing and the infection that caused the fever. The heart was healthy, the lungs were not.


	5. Nightmare vs. Memory

Round 5 – Nightmare vs. Memory

Sokka groaned and stretched as he rolled out of his bedroll. He sighed as he realized that everyone else was still asleep around the fire. He started towards the fire, intending to stoke it and begin breakfast when he realized not  _everyone_  was around the fire. There were two empty spaces – Toph and Katara. His searching gaze settled on the cluster of bodies near the far wall. Closer examination revealed Toph sitting against the wall with her eyes closed. She might've been asleep but Sokka had learned early on that closed eyes meant nothing with Toph.

His blood pressure skyrocketed when he noticed that his wayward sister was laying next to their unwanted prisoner. What was Katara thinking?

He marched over and shook her awake. His regret was acute as he felt her fist crack across his jaw. He sat back on his heels rubbing his sore chin as Katara's eyes fluttered open. She glared at him as she sat up. "What! What do you want Sokka? It's your turn to cook."

He stared at her incredulously, shook his head and went back to the fire to start the water boiling for the rice.

Katara rolled her eyes and glanced at her sleeping patient. His skin held an unhealthy pallor but he no longer sounded like a landslide as his chest rose and fell. A small spot of blood on the bandages reminded her of last night. She lifted the top layer and nudged aside the sticky linen underneath. The puncture was clean and beginning to close on its own. Since it didn't need any more attention, she moved the layer back to its original position.

Her touch seemed to rouse a bit, and what had once been quite rest morphed into semi coherent mumbling. She frowned and decided to leave him in favor of relieving herself. She was still tired and stiffer than wet hide left outside on a winter night.

She stood and stretched, wandering into the recesses of the temple where the old bathing rooms were.

* * *

Toph was jolted awake by the sudden elevation in activity around her chosen sleeping site. Her hand unconsciously tightened around the bone shard in her hand from last night eliciting two sharp points of pain in her palm. It frightened her to think what the sharp little menace in her fist could have done if left inside of Zuko.

In the time traveling with the Avatar she had never really had to think about the damage she was truly capable of. She normally simply trapped her enemies, or knocked them out. She'd never been forced to choose between her life and killing. It hit her like a boulder to the stomach when she realized that it was choice she would be called upon to make again when they brought Aang back to face the Fire Lord once and for all.

She took a shaky breath and turned her attention to the remaining body beside her. Zuko's heart now thrummed a steady, reassuring tattoo against his newly healed ribs. He was a bit more restless now than he was earlier in the night and he had started talking again. She moved to touch his brow and maybe soothe him the way her nurses used to when she had nightmares.

She started violently when his hand snaked out and grasped her wrist. Zuko's eyes were wide and unfocused as his gaze centered on her. His voice was low and rough as he whispered nonsensical apologies to her, calling her Uncle, Lu Ten, Azula, even…Mother.

It was surreal. She shook his shoulder, hoping that he was simply dreaming and talking in his sleep. Nothing changed except for the grip on her wrist strengthening. Toph was at a loss. She didn't know what to do and Zuko just kept babbling.

She began to softly stroke his wrist, in hopes of getting him to relax his grip enough for her to pull free and after a bit and more babbled nonsense about lies and being left behind she managed to extricate her arm from his now slack fingers. He continued to moan and talk as she edged away and made her way to where she could smell breakfast cooking.

Zuko's now open eyes roamed restlessly around the temple, never settling on anything for long. He was only aware of the cold and movement. He could feel the faint flutter of fire nearby but he couldn't focus enough to bring it near him. "No!" he cried out, as the icy coldness around him morphed into nightmarish visions of the dead, wandering through the fields of corpses at the North Pole, looking for his mother…

* * *

"He is starting to damage my calm." Sokka grated out. He had finished his porridge as Katara sat down and helped herself to a bowl of slightly overcooked mush and spooned some fish sauce over it. "I mean, what's his problem, huh? Toph says you healed him last night, and he's awake now! Why won't he stop?"

Katara frowned and glanced over into the shadows where her prisoner turned patient lay. He did seem to be in genuine distress. She watched him as she took another bite of her chewy meal and took note of the wide, glazed eyes that refused to settle. He reminded her of the people who she had seen with midnight sun madness… maybe something was wrong with his mind. She knew a fever could make a person hallucinate and see things that weren't there, just like the sun madness sufferers, but Zuko's fever was gone. "Maybe I should probe his mind," she said aloud. Everyone around the fire looked at her in surprise.

"Really?" asked Sokka. "You can do that?"

"The mind is like anything else Sokka, it can be damaged and it can be healed." She shot back with more confidence than she really felt.

"He has been acting pretty out of it since he woke up," Toph chimed in. "I think it's worth having a look if Katara can do it. Fevers don't just damage the body; I know they can make people go mad even after they're gone. He won't be able to teach much to Aang if he's 'gone round the bend."

Sokka looked like he was about to say something that Toph would make him regret, so Katara preempted any reply by standing and finishing off her portion as she walked over to where Zuko was still murmuring away. His eyes locked on to a space about a foot to the left of her head and stayed there. She wasn't sure what he was looking at until she heard Sokka complaining about something.

She ignored her brother as she focused on the vaguely trembling form before her. Once again she sheathed her hands in glowing orbs of water, but this time she forced her element to the tips of her fingers, concentrating the glowing vapors there as she gently placed the digits on Zuko's temples.

She began to sink down through the layers of Zuko's tissues until she found the dully glowing net of chi that defined his head. She was so focused on the trance that she didn't notice the outright panic that Zuko had entered as he saw the glowing light coming towards his eyes nor how that panic mounted as her exploration of his chi pathways paralyzed him.

Once again, she began firming some pathways and untangling others. To her senses, it looked like everything was covered in a light layer of ash. Most of her work was brushing the glowing threads off and allowing his inner fire to breathe. As she worked, images began to come to her.  _There was a pond full of turtle ducklings, a woman in the night and_ … the images began to stutter and sharpen and merge with her own consciousness. Not only could she see and hear the images, suddenly she could feel them as well.

 _She felt frustration and anger as she watched her little sister best her in every aspect of their training._ No! She didn't have a sister! She had a brother and her father… _She was kneeling on the ground, the tears she didn't want to cry were falling freely as father approached. She looked up and saw a man with a long beard…no it was Hakoda! Her father sneered down at her as he raised a fist full of flam, told her that he would teach her manners and brought that searing heat down upon her face. She writhed upon the ground, screaming. Oh Agni! She was going to die..._

She came back to herself, still screaming. Sokka was dragging her away from the screaming Zuko. When he deemed he was far enough away he pulled Katara close to him and rubbed her back the way he remembered his own mother doing for him when he was young. "Katara? Katara! Are you alright?" Toph was shouting loudly as she shook in her brother's lap.

"I-it was terrifying! There was this monster and it was going to kill me and then it was going to hit me and then it just h-hurt. It hurt so much… I th-thought my face was going to melt!" Katara hiccupped. "It was awful!" Sokka held her as she sobbed, rubbing circles on her back. When she was finally calm enough she crawled out of a grateful Sokka's lap. He stood and stretched the kinks out of his legs as Katara wiped her watery eyes and scrambled to her feet as well. Toph was still sitting next to Zuko, her fingers lightly stroking along his arm. He seemed to quiet under her touch, much as Katara had under Sokka's.

"What was that?" Teo shouted, his eyes wide.

Katara shuddered as she turned her eyes on the prone form lying beneath the overhang. Though his frantic flailing had ceased, his shallow breathing was still too rapid and uneven. She ignored Teo in favor of watching Toph ease Zuko into the waking world. His eyes slit open and took on a more lucid tinge than they had last night as Toph continued to murmur soothingly.

At last she turned around and regarded Teo who was still staring up at her from his chair. "I'm not sure Teo, but I don't ever want to get lost inside his head again. She turned on her heel and strode into the temple proper. She needed some time alone to think.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sooo… not as happy with this chapter as I was with the others. I've rewritten it twice and it just doesn't seem to want to come together. E-brownies go to whoever can spot the line from 'Serenity' in here!


	6. Loss vs. Opportunity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Props if you can name the anime I stole the Avatar names from! :)

Props if you can name the anime I stole the Avatar names from! :)

* * *

Final Round: Loss vs. Opportunity

Zuko was, to say the least, confused. Or perhaps he was bewildered? Flummoxed? He stopped exploring his vocabulary and tried once more to take stock of the situation.

The first thing he noticed was a persistent throbbing ache in his head. Besides that, though the rest of him was sore, he felt far better than the last time he remembered waking up. That seemed to be the only part of his current situation he could be absolutely sure of, because it seemed surreal to the point of absurdity that the sky had become a ceiling of rock and the stars had morphed into two misty grey lights floating somewhere between the ceiling and him.

He blinked again and the floating lights resolved into a pair of milky white eyes.  _Dear Agni! The earthbender!_ Thinking she had come for revenge of some sort or to finish what she had started with that cursed rock spike, he threw himself to the side trying to get out of her range.

His stiffened muscles violently protested the sudden rapid use so soon upon waking as he awkwardly tried to crawl away from the small form in green frowning after him. He tried to apologize once more, to tell her he wasn't going to hurt her in an effort to stop her from hitting him again, but nothing would leave his throat.

He desperately tried to speak again, and still he was met with a maddening silence. He couldn't shout, he couldn't scream - he couldn't even whisper. Tears of frustration leaked from the corners of his eyes before he could stop them. He angrily dashed them away as his back hit the wall and he could withdraw no further from the source of his current wretched state.

"Hey, take it easy." Toph murmured as she felt the prone form tense up and skitter away. "You're safe here." She stopped moving towards the silent form heaving for breath as she noticed his heart beat faster each time she got nearer.

"I'm sorry I hurt you, you know," She said hesitantly. "I was just trying to make you stop coming after me. I was scared… I didn't mean to hurt you like that…" Toph scuffed the ground with her toe, eyes downcast. She waited for his response, the silence becoming more awkward as it stretched on with Zuko still pressed firmly against the wall.

"Um, alright…" She wasn't sure what else to say. He didn't seem to be accepting her apology and he wasn't moving. She decided to go and find Katara. Maybe he was still in pain and that's why he wouldn't respond to her.

"Just try to lie back down before you hurt yourself," she shot over her shoulder as she moved towards the entrance of the temple proper, some confidence returning to her tone. "Katara won't be happy if you undo any of her work!"

* * *

 _Katara, that was the waterbender!_ Was it she who had stolen his voice? Did it have anything to do with the insistent drumbeat that had begun to pick up speed in the middle of his head? He took the strange girl's advice and slid down the wall until he was resting with his back against it. She had apologized for hurting him so perhaps she didn't mean to pummel him again…His ribs twinged in remembrance of that night. He felt bad that she thought he hadn't accepted her apologies and that he could not offer his own again, but his voice was still not cooperating with him.

He let his head fall back against the wall and contemplated trying to leave, but this was what he had asked for. He was in their camp and maybe with time he would be able to convince them to let him teach Aang. Even if he had lost his voice, he still had his bending.

Lost in his thoughts he began to shiver. He felt too weak to make it all the way over to the blankets that had been covering him and back to the wall where he felt slightly more secure, so he summoned a small flame to his palm to ward off the chill.

At least, he tried to summon a flame. Much as when he had tried to speak, nothing came.

He centered himself and tried to bring his quickening breathing back under control, but though he could shakily form the motions which normally brought him in touch with his element nothing happened. Tears began to fall in earnest as his hand dropped lifelessly to his side, all of his energy spent.

This was the state Katara found him in when Toph led her out of the temple. Toph felt the silent, shaking sobs wracking his body from a distance. She bit her lip and pulled Katara along faster. "Katara, what's wrong with him?"

Katara approached slowly and knelt down at the sobbing exile's side and put her hand on his shoulder. "He's crying, Toph." At the sound of her voice, Zuko looked up at her and his face contorted into an expression of anger. His mouth began to move and he gestured wildly with the hand that wasn't wrapped protectively around his middle, but though he looked like he was shouting at the top of his lungs, he didn't actually say anything.

Katara was perplexed. "Toph, did he say anything to you when he woke up?" At this, he seemed to deflate completely and resumed his motionless staring contest with the floor, refusing to meet her eyes.

"No, he didn't say anything. He just freaked a little and scooched over there."

Zuko glared at the shorter girl before him. He did not  _scooch._

"Well he seems to want to say a great deal right now. I think he's lost his voice…"

Zuko did meet her gaze at this pronouncement and gestured violently to his throat whilst attempting to scream, whisper, to make any noise at all. He then pinched his thumb and forefinger together as if grasping a brush and made writing motions.

Katara turned to Toph. "Could you make a stylus or something thin and sharp so he can spell in the dirt?"

"Easier than breathing, Sugar Queen!" She stomped her left foot down upon the ground and caught the slim stone that popped free, handing it over to Katara. She in turn handed it to Zuko with a warning look that promised pain if he did anything stupid.

 _What did you do to me? I can't talk and my bending is gone!_  he franticly scratched in the smooth stone before him. Katara relayed the message to Toph and then shot a piercing look at Zuko. "Your bending is gone?" He punched the air towards her and angrily indicated the air where his hand had been and no fire had formed.

"Can you fix it Katara?"

"I don't know Toph, I don't even know if I want to fix it. I need to talk to Aang." She abruptly stood and walked over to the breakfast fire.

* * *

"Zuko's lost his bending," Katara huffed out as she plopped next to Aang and helped herself to a bowl of rice.

Aang actually dropped his chopsticks as he stared at her in horror.

"Serves him right. Makes one less firebender we have to worry about anyway," came Sokka's satisfied response.

Toph clipped him upside the head as she sat down and Aang shot him a fierce glare.

"You don't know what you're saying Snoozles. It's never a good thing to take away a bender's ability. I would be dead if I couldn't bend and not because someone else had tried to do me in either. I never would have been able to handle being blind without the crutch my bending is for me. Being a bender is part of who you are as a person, and no one should have to lose that. The poor guy started hyperventilating after you said that, Katara."

She turned her milky eyes unerringly in Katara's direction. "If you can fix it, you have no reason not to. We've had this discussion already – he's changed and we need a firebending master. "

"Toph, what makes you think I would want to fix him?" Toph frowned, because while the words were aimed to make her angry, something about Katara's heartbeat didn't ring true… Yes, she still hated Zuko, but there was an undercurrent of – fear?  _Oh no._

"Katara, he didn't lose his bending until after you worked on him. Did you do this on purpose?"

"NO!" Katara's heartbeat had moved into the realm of truly pissed. "I didn't take away his bending, I am not like those fire nation monsters! I would never knowingly steal someone else's bending, I've lost mine once and I never intend to have that happen to me again!"

Aang chose this moment to step between his teachers. "Ok! Nothing will be solved if we just shout at each other. Please sit down."

As the two women sat down the airbender turned his wide grey eyes on Katara. "I know you wouldn't do this to anyone on purpose but Toph's right. It didn't happen until you started healing him. Do you think that had anything to do with it?"

Katara's eyes were downcast as she thought. "Maybe. I was planning on asking you what you thought."

"I'm not a healer, Katara."

"I know, but… you may have been one before…"

Aang slowly nodded as he realized what she was asking. "I can ask Roku about it. If he doesn't know, I'm sure someone else in the spirit world will have some ideas. Give me a bit of time and I'll let you know what I'll find out." He stood and walked into the temple to meditate.

* * *

It was nearly evening when Aang emerged again from the temple. He looked drawn and not a little put out. He drew Katara off to one side and they talked until the sun was poised on the edge of the horizon. Aang punctuated much of what he said with wild gesticulation and pointed thrusts of his hands. Near the end of the conversation, his movements began to slow and he dropped into several bending stances. Sokka and Toph watched with unabashed curiosity.

Finally they turned as one and began walking towards Zuko. The watching pair fell in step besides the two benders.

"So what's the verdict? Can you fix him?" Toph asked, breaking the silence. Katara and Aang quickly filled them in and all too soon they came to a stop in front of Zuko. He was still huddled against the wall, wrapped in the blanket Toph had found for him after his panic attack that morning. He didn't even look up at their approach, his eyes never leaving the small pattern he continued to trace in the dust.

"Zuko?"

Toph's anxiety levels spiked. She had never heard Katara sound this timid before. Whatever was coming was not going to be pleasant.

"Zuko, I-I…" With the renewed attempt to gain his attention finally brought Zuko's head up. Aang flinched as the lifeless golden orbs stared back at them. Zuko's expressionless face would not have looked out of place on a corpse.

Katara seemed to find her courage at last as she looked into the despair she had created. She swallowed and squared her shoulders as she finally said her piece. "Zuko, I'm sorry. Aang here has been consulting some of his past lives and the healers have shown us how to repair the damage I've done. You had a fever last night and it damaged your mind. I didn't really have the training to do any mind healing, but I thought I could do it anyway. I ended up melding with some of your memories and they scared me. When I withdrew from your mind, I was afraid and uncontrolled. While what I had tried to heal was fixed, my lack of technique ended up tangling some things and tearing others. Your mind will try to repair itself, but without the pathways being straightened and lined up properly, it will heal incorrectly."

Zuko continued to gaze at her listlessly as she finished her little speech. When it became obvious she was waiting for some kind of response, he nodded jerkily and scratched in the stone before him.

Sokka leaned over Toph and read the upside down characters. "I'm pretty sure Granna Kanna would have a fit if she saw his grammar right now, but I think he wants to know if you can fix it what you'll have to do."

Katara looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Well, I have to do what I did before. The previous Avatars, Kisuke in particular, seem to think Zuko's mind was trying to attack me by trapping me in memories it knew would frighten me because it knew I wasn't supposed to be there. I was an intruder – the enemy. In order to heal what I damaged, I need to find a way to trap the memories or to fool them into thinking they're still working as a defense. Unfortunately, memories are tricky things. Avatars Kyouraku and Toshiro helped create a solution, but I need Zuko's permission to enact it."

With those words, she dropped to her knees beside Zuko and, putting a hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye. "Your mind knows me now. I was an enemy before and it will continue to regard me as such. Your defenses are going to keep trying to push me out, whether by fear or confusion. Avatar Byakuya warned that instead of fear, it may just be a deluge of memories – images and experiences – all at once trying to overwhelm my own defenses. Defenses I have no control over. If I try to connect outright again, I'll probably harm both of us."

Katara took a deep breath. "This is where it gets tricky. There is a way to contain the memories, but unless they're actually being viewed by someone, they'll rebound on me and push me out again. The only way to heal you is to have your defenses attack someone else," she finished in a rush.

Zuko made a wiping motion over the stone before him with a pointed glace at Toph. Before Sokka could say anything to her, Toph slid her foot to the side and the ground before him became smooth once again. With a nod of thanks, he began to write once more.

It fell to Sokka to translate once again. "So all you have to do is show the others my most private thoughts and moments? Is that all?"

Katara flushed an angry red and refused to look up, so it was Aang who answered. "Yes and no. You may have some control over the images we see now that you're aware of what will be happening, but we're trying to confuse your defenses, so you might not have as much control as you would like. There's going to be three of us sharing the work so Katara can focus – hopefully with that many minds to focus on, none of us will be overwhelmed."

 _What do you mean, three?_ Zuko scratched out.

"Me, Sokka and Toph of course!"

Zuko looked like he was going to argue, but thought better of it.

_Do it._

Aang relayed his message and Katara slid into a bending stance. She pulled a large globe of water from the fountain splashing on the other side of the room. She and Aang began to bend it back and forth. Soon, rivulets of color began to appear in the liquid. It almost looked spirit touched. They continued to bend it as it became smaller and smaller, until a dimly glowing sphere of solid ice the size of Aang's head had formed.

Katara gently guided it into Zuko's lap. To his surprise, the sphere wasn't cold at all. On the contrary, it reminded him of the warmth of the Spirit Oasis under the ice in the North Pole. "Keep a hold of that, skin contact will make the connection easier." Zuko nodded and Katara wreathed her hand in glowing water. She placed her fingertips on his temples and it looked like she was going to pluck out one of his hairs. When she withdrew her fingers it was not hair clinging to the tips, but golden strands of chi.

She pushed the chi strands into the warm lump in Zuko's arms. She repeated the gesture several times, each time gathering more and more chi. "Alright," she said. "Toph, Aang, Sokka – you touch the golden spots on this. Keep contact with it for as long as you can. I'll try to be quick, but I can't rush this."

The trio arranged themselves in a semi circle in front of the prince and placed a hand on the glowing orb. Everyone closed their eyes and Katara once again sank into the golden morass, searching for the damage.

* * *

It wasn't long before the images began to appear. Zuko did his best to fight them, but the nightmares were all there, just waiting for the slightest provocation to come to the fore. He could actually feel the invasive presences in his mind. Three concentrated in one area, and another floating somewhere else.

His tactical training began to take over.  _Deal with the bigger threat first, not the one you can't even locate_. His awareness of the situation slipped away as his attention focused on the three presences in the forefront of his consciousness. How dare they? How dare they enter here?

The nightmarish visions stirred in response. Memories of flames and pain, of cruel smiles in the dark and at the dinner table began to flood toward the offending intruders. He felt them tremble and he continued the assault. Two of them resisted, one let them flow past.

He simply unleashed hell upon the resisting attackers. The overwhelming assault soon forced them to flee. The remaining accessible signature was very different from the other two. Where they had tried to push forward or evade the attacks, this one had stood still.

He switched tactics and tried to drown the invader in a flash of images. Still it was unmoved. The images trickled to a halt and only then did the newcomer push forward. It was a slow push that stopped as soon as it started. Perhaps this wasn't an enemy? In his interest, he completely forgot the fourth presence that had entered his mind.

The presence that had sought his permission to enter could soon be seen walking through the mist that surrounded him. The girl appeared was tiny - a fragile shell drifting in the foam just like him. She didn't speak so Zuko simply took her hand and led her onward.

They stepped into what was once a tamed garden. Geometric paths made up of cracked and crooked paving stones that were missing every few steps wound their way through uprooted spice-berry trees and an enormous laughing willow overhung a pond full of turtle-ducklings that was surrounded by a ruined garden wall. A burnt shell now stood where a small temple had been. He pulled her down on the bank beside him and coaxed one of the tiny balls of fluff into his hand and held it out for her to pet. She smiled and he lost track of the time as they just sat in the peace of the garden.

After a long stretch, he noticed that the trees were suddenly back in the ground. The paths were complete again and the wall and the temple were standing. "It's time to go back," she said when she finally broke her silence.

"I know." He replied. "Thank you."

The garden dissolved into the mist once more and suddenly he was on his back, staring up at the misty lights that weren't stars once more.

"Welcome back, Sparky."

"I'm sorry I burned your feet," came his choked reply.

"IT WORKED!" Toph crowed. "Can you bend too?"

Zuko shook his head minutely. "I don't think I can summon a flame yet, but I can feel the sunrise." Indeed, where a full moon had been rising the last time he had looked, now Agni was preparing to grace the sky in all his wonder.

"If I can get into the sunlight, I should be able to bend soon. Firebenders don't do well without the sun."

Toph pulled the boys over to help Zuko and she in turn bore Katara up on a rolling stone slab and brought her to a room in the temple where she could finish sleeping. The marathon healing sessions had taken it out of her. She had collapsed into Aang's arms the moment she had disconnected from Zuko's mind.

Sokka and Aang stooped down and each threw one of Zuko's arms over their shoulders. They brought him out into the damp air that was just beginning to lighten. Zuko took a deep breath and felt the warmth settle into his bones and rekindle the inner flame that was the life of all firebenders.

Aang and Sokka turned to leave but Sokka turned around and dropped himself next to Zuko. "So…I just wanted to say…I'm, uh…I'm…sorry. I know you weren't very happy about us seeing your memories like that and, frankly, I can see why. You have got some scary-ass memories, man. And, for the record – if my dad did that to me," he said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his face, "I would have told him to do something very uncomplimentary."

Zuko looked away. "You're a good son, Zuko. But you have got a rotten father. Sister too, come to think of it. Your memories of her actually scare me about as much as your dad does." Sokka finished philosophically. "Look, I'll stop giving you a hard time. I get why you're here now and so does Aang. I think if you offer to teach him firebending again, he'll accept. Toph seems to be on your side and I'm sure my sister will come around. Eventually," he amended whilst scratching the back of his neck.

"Well, this all worked out better than I had hoped, actually."

"Really? I guess I can see where you're coming from on that now, all things considered."

"Yeah."

Sokka got up as if to leave again, but turned around one last time. "Zuko, if someone were captured by the fire nation, where would they be taken?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And so ends our little adventure, jumping right back into the cannon timeline. I would like to thank each and every one of you who have read, those who have reviewed and those who have favorited. I get the warm fuzzies whenever I see an alert in my inbox! You are all wonderful, wonderful human beings and I love you all!


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